Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup. This time, Amazon bought Twitch, we got our first look at a Pokémon fighting game, and the classic adventure game Gabriel Knight turned 20.
You’ll find all of that and more below. Have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Getting an acquisition story wrong, and the lessons that come from it
- Life without NCAA Football 15: Here are 5 alternatives to get you through the season
- NCAA Football 15? How a community is keeping the series alive with updated rosters, playoffs, and more
- GamesBeat 2014 panel tackles partnering with Asian giants — without getting trampled
- How sports gamers are integral to Microsoft’s Xbox One strategy
- How GameStop’s ‘high touch’ customer service is paying off
- Here’s what Amazon’s $970M acquisition of Twitch really signifies
- Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson to talk about game industry change at GamesBeat 2014
- Forget the kids: Adults will love these 4 retro gaming toys
- Amazon’s Twitch acquisition is about beating Google and Apple
- In global gaming, Amazon gains an advantage, and Google loses a round
- Why Silent Hill’s playable teaser P.T. is about scares, not endings
- Gabriel Knight 20 years later: How this point-and-click adventure has changed from 1994 to 2014 (gallery)
Above: Finally, Mario and Link can determine who is the better racer.
Image Credit: Nintendo
News
- HackerRank ‘gamifies’ technical job recruiting for game companies (exclusive)
- Steam’s ‘no refunds’ policy for games under legal challenge in Australia
- Game-maker group scolds trolls over death threats and other harassment of developers
- So many dudes: 93% of Wii U eShop customers are men
- Xbox One is a better media machine with its September update that’s rolling out now
- Titanfall is getting a mode with no Titans and no bots — just 16 humans
- PlayStation Network down for rescheduled maintenance
- Destiny available to preload on Xbox One today (updated)
- Eve Online developer closes its San Francisco office
- Splatoon was nearly a Mario third-person shooter, according to Shigeru Miyamoto
- Critic Anita Sarkeesian receives online death threats after latest Feminist Frequency video on games
- Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto calls ‘passive’ entertainment ‘pathetic’ in appeal to core fans
- BioWare assures fans that Dragon Age: Inquisition’s multiplayer won’t affect the single-player mode
- Doctor Who time-travels to Minecraft on Xbox 360
- Kinect lives! Xbox One’s standalone camera goes on sale for $150 with Dance Central next month
- Lindsay Lohan only sued us for publicity, says Grand Theft Auto V developer
- Mario Kart 8’s DLC includes Zelda’s Link, Animal Crossing’s Villager, and an F-Zero kart (gallery)
- PlayStation Network down intermittently for PS4, PS3, and Vita owners — Sony working on a fix
- Amazon’s purchase of Twitch pushes games M&A to $9.2B so far in 2014
- Amazon acquires Twitch: World’s largest e-tailer buys largest gameplay-livestreaming site
- Confirmed: Amazon could steal Twitch acquisition from Google
- Pokémon fighting game announced: Pokkén Tournament heading to Japanese arcades
- Capcom sues Koei Tecmo for using disc-based expansion packs
- You win, Steam: GameFly sells its PC digital-distribution service
- France’s Asmodee Group acquires ‘Ticket to Ride’ board-game maker Days of Wonder
- PlayStation Network, League of Legends back online after a day of outages due to DDoS attacks
- PlayStation Network goes down, and hackers claim responsibility (update: it gets crazier)
Above: Kim Kardashian’s game for smartphones and tablets.
Image Credit: Glu Mobile
Mobile and social
- Angry Birds maker Rovio chooses a new CEO to succeed longtime boss in 2015
- Poor performance means ‘game over’ for mobile gaming apps
- Mobile Dota 2-like Heroes of Order & Chaos gets built-in Twitch broadcasting
- Kim Kardashian crushes the competition for mobile games in July
- The cost of acquiring mobile app users ebbs in July, but it’s still outrageously high
- Here’s what Candy Crush Saga and Kim Kardashian are doing to your phone’s storage and battery life
- Big-spending players stage boycott in Kabam’s Dragons of Atlantis: Heirs of the Dragon mobile game
- Microsoft unveils Age of Empires: Castle Siege for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8
- WWE SuperCard digital card game slams past 1.5 million downloads in one week
Previews and interviews
- A real astronomer weighs in on finding habitable planets in Civilization: Beyond Earth (interview)
- 20 years of Gabriel Knight: Jane Jensen on the anniversary edition of the adventure classic (interview)
Reviews
- Azure Striker Gunvolt is a smart, updated take on 16-bit action games (review)
- The Walking Dead’s Season Two Episode Five lacks closure (review)
- No objection! Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright is a satisfying mashup (review)
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